Quotes from Carl Jung

one form of life cannot simply be abandoned unless it is exchanged for another

Blind acceptance never leads to a solution; at best it leads only to a standstill and is paid for heavily in the next generation.

I never think that I am the one who must see to it that cherries grow on stalks

The more the ego seeks to secure every possible liberty, independence, superiority, and freedom from obligations, the deeper does it fall into the slavery of objective facts. The subject's freedom of mind is chained to an ignominious financial dependence, his unconcernedness of action suffers now and again, a distressing collapse in the face of public opinion, his moral superiority gets swamped in inferior relationships, and his desire to dominate ends in a pitiful craving to be loved.

A belief proves to me only the phenomenon of belief, not the content of the belief.

Man in the mass sinks unconsciously to an inferior moral and intellectual level, to that level which is always there, below the threshold of consciousness, ready to break forth as soon as it is activated by the formation of a mass. ... Since nobody is capable of recognizing just where and how much he himself is possessed and unconscious, he simply projects his own condition upon his neighbor, and thus it becomes a sacred duty to have the biggest guns and the most poisonous gas.

There is no good that cannot produce evil and no evil that cannot produce good.

In this way he slips imperceptibly into a purely conceptual world where the products of his conscious activity progressively take the place of reality.

The forlorn state of consciousness in our world is due primarily to loss of instinct, and the reason for this lies in the development of the human mind over the past aeon. The more power man had over nature, the more his knowledge and skill went to his head, and the deeper became his contempt for the merely natural and accidental, for all irrational data—including the objective psyche, which is everything that consciousness is not.

I am not altogether pessimistic about neurosis. In many cases we have to say, "Thank heaven he could make up his mind to be neurotic." Neurosis is really an attempt at self-cure…It is an attempt of the self-regulating psychic system to restore the balance, in no way different from the function of dreams – only rather more forceful and drastic.

The image of God has a shadow. The supreme meaning is real and casts a shadow. For what can be actual and corporeal and have no shadows?

like a dream which seems a reality as long as we are in it.

In sterquiliniis invenitur". "In filth it shall be found

The enigmatic oneness of the living organism, has as its corollary the fact that bodily traits are not merely physical, nor mental traits merely psychic. The continuity of nature knows nothing of those antithetical distinctions which the human intellect is forced to set up as aids to understanding.

I am neither spurred on by excessive optimism nor in love with high ideals, but am merely concerned with the fate of the individual human being - that infinitesimal unit on whom a world depends, and in whom, if we read the meaning of the Christian message aright, even God seeks his goal.

The difference between the "natural" individuation process, which runs its course unconsciously, and the one which is consciously realized, is tremendous. In the first case consciousness nowhere intervenes; the end remains as dark as the beginning. In the second case so much darkness comes to light that the personality is permeated with light, and consciousness necessarily gains in scope and insight.

A natural function which has existed from the beginning, like the religious function, cannot be disposed of with rationalistic and so-called enlightened criticism.

in order to undergo a far-reaching psychological development, neither outstanding intelligence nor any other talent is necessary. . .

A career, producing of children, are all maya [illusion] compared to that one thing, that your life is meaningful.

Do not throw yourself against what has become, enraged or bent on destruction. What will you put in its place? Do you not know that if you are successful in destroying what has become, you will then turn the will of destruction against yourself? But anyone who makes destruction their goal will perish through self-destruction. Much rather respect what has become, since reverence is a blessing.

The biggest guns and the heaviest industry with its relatively high living standard are not enough to check the psychic infection spread by religious fanaticism.

Man can live the most amazing things if they make sense to him. But the difficulty is to create that sense.

The great Poetry that creates out of the soul of humankind is inaccurately explained if we reduce it to the personal

The core of an individual is the mystery of life, which dies when it is 'grasped'. That is also why symbols want to keep their secrets.